Solipsism: This Is All In My Mind?

As the philosophical holds, there’s a chance you don’t exist, that not only you, but this episode, the podcast, and the entire universe are only projections of Josh or Chuck’s mind. If so, then recording this episode was a waste of time. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and Jerry's not here, we are. And we're pretty sure that both of us are here, but it's possible just me is here, and this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  That's right. Diving into philosophy again. This one, solipsism, perhaps the most navel-gazy, sort of unintelligible aspect of all of them, which is that sort of old, classic stoner college dorm room thing. How do we know if anything is real? What if it's all, and is part of it? What if it's all just a simulation?

• 1:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's one, that's one example of what it could be, but there's a couple of things about this. One, as annoying as it is, because if you're, if you're arguing for solipsism, and I don't want to say you're, you're a solipsist, because there's basically nobody out there who's an actual solopsist.

• 2:11Josh Clark?

  Like you can just keep saying like, but yeah, how do you know? But yeah, how do you know? There doesn't seem to be any more reducted

• 2:23Josh Clark?

  argument in all of philosophy. All other philosophy can essentially be argued against by solipsism. And the reason why is because the basis of solipsism is that there is no reality. It's just you, you hearing this. I don't exist. Chuck doesn't exist. This podcast doesn't exist. Nothing exists except for your mind. And that's the basis of everything that you think is real. And none of us are actually doing anything that you're not projecting out of your mind. That's solipsism. And it sounds mind blowing, but like I said, it's also annoying.

• 3:04Josh Clark?

  And it's also extremely simple, so much so that it can deceive you into thinking that it means more than it does. It doesn't. It's as, it's as basic as that. But again, as annoying as it is, it is in some ways a useful argument because if you really want to make a philosopher rigorous in their argument, have them take on solipsism or some form of it.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think Livia found something online that said like, no modern, like legitimate philosopher even takes part in these arguments because it's just such like, hey, get off the couch with your bong and maybe talk about something, some real philosophy.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  Well, also the other part of it too, is if you were a genuine philosopher and you genuinely believe that nothing was real except in your mind, there is zero point for you to do anything like write a philosophy paper for solipsism. Because nobody's out there to read it in actuality. So what's the point? You're by yourself in the entire universe, so much so that the universe doesn't even exist outside of your mind. You're by yourself in some incomprehensible form of existence. It's just weird and depressing in a lot of ways.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. We should mention the skeptics a little bit because that's sort of a, that sort of lays the groundwork for solipsism a little bit. The skeptics started around the third century BCE. The word itself came from the Greek term meaning inquiry or examination. And they were basically like, hey, it's not possible to have like some knowledge to make definitive judgments, arguing against the Stoics, who said, no, you should be able to test claims using, you know, stuff that we can see and hear, using our senses. And the skeptics, and this sort of laid the groundwork of what was to come for solipsism,

• 4:58Speaker 02

  basically said like, hey, we can all be deceived though. What about the case of identical twins? You could, you could be deceived there, or you could have a sensory experience, if you're talking about trusting your senses, that aren't connected to reality, like that's what a dream is. And dreams sort of play into the whole thing, at least at the beginning.

• 5:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. The skeptic said, you ever had a dream, Dingus?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:21Josh Clark?

  How are you gonna, how are you gonna trust your senses with that? And so skepticism, like you said, is kind of a, an extension of it, a basis of it. It's not quite there, but enough that solipsism is often thought of as an extreme form of skepticism. Sometimes it's also called global skepticism, like you're skeptical of everything. And then it's also sometimes called mondo-scepto.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Speaking of the dreams though, there was a Taoist philosopher named Zhuangzi that, and this also sort of laid the groundwork, was, hey, if I wake up from a dream and I was a, you know, a wildebeest in that dream, how do I know that I'm not really a wildebeest and that this is the dream?

• 6:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And all of this, again, yes, it does seem kind of bong-ish or bong-adjacent for sure, but...

• 6:15Josh Clark?

  This is the kind of stuff that philosophers care about. Like, it's called epistemology. Epistemiology? I like to add a lot of syllables sometimes, so I'm not quite sure which one. But it's the basis of how we know what we know, how we gain knowledge. And the point of this, of all this stuff, as people were kind of building on it, is to say, like, we need to kind of figure out how we do know, because if you really stop and think about it, we're not quite sure exactly how we know anything. And that whole thing was picked up in the 17th century by Descartes. And his very famous quote, "I think, therefore I am," came out of this, right?

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's, you know, basically saying like, hey, I know that I am real. I'm doing the thinking, I have a brain, but that's about all I know.

• 7:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Descartes was the first one that came in and said, hey, maybe we should, he had a system called methodic doubt, great band name, to determine if, like, hey, you're saying something is truth, like, one of the truths, we should be able to test this, but things are fallible, like math, you can make mistakes in, you can't look at tradition of a culture, because, you know, people might disagree with that kind of thing. And then the idea of an evil demon coming in and basically kind of taking hold of your consciousness and saying that you're having all these illusions, and that's inhabited inside of you.

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so that evil demon thing too, it's like, as we'll see, it's been updated in much more modern form, but Descartes was the first one to really kind of say, it's possible, especially, we should say Descartes believed in God, that the extension of that, "I think, therefore I am," is also that anything I can just intuitively know is real, like, God is real. So he believed that there definitely was God. So he was arguing, like, okay, if we believe in God, then... There we have to entertain the possibility that it's not just, you know, our minds that are projecting this, but that we're we're being diluted,

• 8:34Josh Clark?

  that we're like, an entire universe is being created for us by this evil demon. This is his 17th century application of it. But it's like, like I said, it kind of formed these or it's been updated in modern forms. And that really kind of, that's where it gets super tough because it's like, okay, yeah, it's ridiculous that you're you're the only person who exists and all the rest of us don't exist. Or even more creepy, this is where it gets it to me. Okay. Like it, when you start to try to argue against solipsism, one of the ways that you're going to go is that other people have experiences and thoughts and emotions too.

• 9:17Josh Clark?

  So that totally discounts the idea that you're the only entity, you're the only self in the entire universe and that all of this is just in your mind. But then you have to ask like, well, wait a minute. How do you know other people have experiences and thoughts and feelings like you do? There's no way for you to know that. And there's actually no way for them to get that across to you in any provable way. And then you just kind of go like, oh, it's a little scary. At least I do. It's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Well, the word itself, if you want to break it down, it first appeared in 1869 from Kant. And I think it's Latin for solus from alone and ipsi, meaning self. And this isn't the kind of thing where like, at the beginning, people are like, wow, this is really holds a lot of water. From the beginning, it was pretty ridiculous and philosophers thought it was pretty ridiculous. Oh, here's a quote, no great philosopher has espoused solipsism.

• 10:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  It's the quote that Livia found. Because, you know, if you believe that there's nothing, then you can't have an argument about anything because like you said at the beginning, a solipsist would just come in and go like, well, how do you know? Prove it. You can't prove that because even your proof isn't proof because it's not real.

• 10:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah. One of the other things too, just to kind of get this into perspective is like, you can't even say that you have a brain because everything you know about a brain, you've basically, you're not born with the concept of a brain. You learn that from the external world. And if the external world doesn't exist, then maybe brains don't exist. Like maybe you just don't even, can't even conceive of who you are. And that's the ultimate problem. You can just keep reducing it. Like you can't prove how you know what you know. And I feel like that's really kind of set us up for a break. What do you think?

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll be right back.

• 11:37Josh Clark?

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• 11:47Speaker 02

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• 12:00Josh Clark?

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• 12:15Speaker 02

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• 12:40Speaker 02

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• 12:51Josh Clark?

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• 13:56Josh Clark?

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• 14:32Josh Clark?

  So one of the things I kind of talked about earlier before the break, Chuck, was that the, as far as philosophy goes, like if you're trying to actually apply this to philosophical arguments, or maybe like real-world kind of stuff.

• 14:47Josh Clark?

  Is that it has to do with other minds and the fact that we can't ever fully understand what other people are thinking. And then as relates to solipsism, we can't really prove that other people are thinking. And there's actually some, not just philosophers, but neuroscientists who've kind of investigated this because it is an interesting question. Like, it's that same kind of question, like, how do I know that we both experienced the same color green in the exact same way? And that what you call green, I actually think is is blue. Like, I experience it as what you would experience blue, but I call it green because I think that's what you're talking about, too.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And in terms of neuroscience, you know, you're talking about maybe a technology where you could brain splice and you could literally maybe get someone inside someone else's head. But even then, it's not like some sort of foolproof solipsistic argument because even if you were sending signals from one brain to another, it's still going to be a subjective experience and you wouldn't have any idea, even though you're getting the signals from their brain, like the subjective nature of it, like, you can't, you can't gauge subjectivity scientifically.

• 16:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And there's this, there's this example of like, okay, one person that you're connected to the brain of is saying, like, I'm thinking of a red apple. And the other person with the other connected brain is like, yep, I can see the red apple that you're thinking of. But again, that to that person, red is what the other person would think of as blue. And you can't possibly know that that person is thinking of what would be actually a blue apple and calling it red. But the thing is, you can, you can just be like, okay, person number two, now you think of a red apple, and we'll see what person number one thinks of it, if it matches their conception. It'd be really easy to find that out, if you ask me.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if that was the test subject, they'd say, why is Chuck walking into traffic? What's going on?

• 16:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, we should say here, like, all of this does require brain implants. And I just don't feel like there's anybody trustworthy to put an implant in your brain right now.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 17:04Josh Clark?

  There's also this concept of a philosophical zombie, right? They're called P-zombies. And it kind of ties in with what I was saying, like, we can't ever say that somebody else is thinking or emoting because we can conceive of something that looks like a human, acts like a human, has all the same thought processes of a human, maybe even has emotions and all that stuff. But they're missing what it means to be a human, which is the experience of experiencing something, right? So not like that person can eat an apple and taste what an apple tastes like, but they will never feel what it feels like to taste an apple that's like really delicious. You know what I'm saying?

• 17:47Josh Clark?

  And so people come up with, came up with the idea of a P-zombie, a philosophical zombie, to try to investigate like what it is that makes humans, humans. And that's kind of what they came up with.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if you, you know, as AI comes on more and more, and I know you tackled some of this in the End of the World, your special podcast series.

• 18:08Josh Clark?

  Thanks for the.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  But the idea of like AI becoming sentient or conscious or whatever, like, how are we going to know if that's even happening? Because it's not just if it knows so much stuff. It can, you know, AI can learn facts and things, but like it's that that subjectivity of a human or a, I guess, just an experience, because it wouldn't be human. And like, how do we know if that's happening to an AI?

• 18:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, or a person too, you know, like, it's just, and again, like, I think you kind of nailed it on the head. Like, all this seems like navel gazing, but there is like some utility to it.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Well, let's talk about some of the.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  I guess varieties of solipsism that they've come up with over the years. There's one called metaphysical solipsism. That's basically that an individual is like yourself is all that there is, nothing else has any independent reality at all. Then there is epistemological solipsism. And that is, it is not even possible to know where anything outside our individual consciousness exists or is real.

• 19:19Josh Clark?

  And that one is actually like kind of a step down from metaphysical. They're like, we're not saying that nothing else in the universe exists but your mind. But we're saying like, like you and I were just talking about with P-zombies and AI, like we can't prove that anybody else has those thoughts and feelings besides the thinker.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Right. Not the famous statue, but the, you know. A real thinker. There's methodological, methodological solipsism. I got that extra O in there. And that means it's not possible to even start to analyze the world except through your own individual consciousness and lens, which that makes sense.

• 20:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it does. But I saw that it really gets tricky with research because that base methodological solipsism says you don't need to mess with data or other people's research, just what do you think about the subject? And that doesn't really hold water for like a research paper because, yeah, I mean, that's a good place to start. You can't just dive in, or you, I guess you can, but it's also like, what are your conceptions about this? And let's start from there and then go figure out if that's correct. Like, this is just sticking with the what do you think about this and write the research paper. So it's not a really good idea, frankly. And then also Chuck, there's just a straight up bad idea. Ethical solipsism, also called POS solipsism.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's a professor from MIT named, a philosopher, rather, maybe teaches philosophy, named Casper Hare, and he had a book in 2009 called On Myself and Other Less Important Subjects, where he was arguing a lesser version of ethical solipsism, which is the idea that other things and people might exist, but we have no obligation to any of those people or ideas except for our own.

• 21:16Josh Clark?

  No, and I think ultimately, at the end, he's like, but for us to, for the person, the individual, to lead a fuller life, you kind of do need people here or there. So you don't want to just completely screw over everybody for yourself. But that's the basis of what's called ethical solipsism, that you have no moral obligation to anyone except yourself. And then the other thing that really stuck out to me, Chuck, was that you have no moral obligation to anybody but yourself right now. So you don't even have to look out for your future self. All you need to care about is your present self. And that's why I called it POS solipsism.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Piece of what?

• 21:56Josh Clark?

  Piece of S.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  There are also lots of little sort of side ideas that come along if you're gonna gaze at your navel about solipsism. And one is the famous brain in a vat, or the Futurama, or the Matrix idea, which is all you are maybe is a brain floating in a jar with some life-sustaining liquid, and it's hooked up to a computer, and everything you see is a simulation.

• 22:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And this is where we kind of get into the modern, updated versions of Descartes' evil demon, right? Like, what's keeping you in the brain in a vat? What's running that simulation for you?

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:38Josh Clark?

  There's also the simulation hypothesis, which came from Nick Bostrom, which I did do a whole episode on End of the World on, because it just fascinates me. But it's, a lot of people confuse it with the brain in a vat, but it's different, because in the simulation hypothesis, which is-

• 22:56Josh Clark?

  That if civilization becomes advanced, like say, we're their ancestors, they're our descendants, they just keep getting more and more technologically advanced, that they can invent simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, and they run a bunch of simulations over and over again, like say, they sell copies of the simulation game. So 100 million simulations are ever created over the course of history, then mathematically speaking, since we can't distinguish between reality and a simulation, it's much likelier that you and I exist in a simulation rather than the actual one version of reality that the simulations are based on.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:42Josh Clark?

  And the thing that people get mixed up with the brain in a vat is that the brain in the vat, in reality, your brain in a vat. In the simulation, in reality, your reality's simulated, but to you, it's reality. There's nothing different. There's no other, like, reality that you could wake up to. That's just reality. It's essentially like a techno version of creationism, essentially. Like, if you replace whoever came up with the code for the simulation with God, it's essentially saying the same thing.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's also, and this is sort of along those lines, the experience machine idea. There's a philosopher named Robert Nozick in a 1974 book that said, "How about this for a thought experiment? I don't think that people are just basically hedonistic in life. And what would people choose if they could be attached to a machine that can simulate any experience, like, as if it were identical and real, and you thought it was real? Like, would it be hedonistic? Would you choose falling in love? Would you choose to write, create a great piece of art or something like that?" And then, there are different versions of that, like, what if it's for two years at a time? What if it's your whole

• 24:55Speaker 02

  lives? And the counter to that usually is somebody saying, "Yeah, but it's not reality, and people aren't engaged in reality, and humans inherently want to engage with reality."

• 25:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and like to sweeten the pot, Nozick was like, like, you will have nothing but pleasure for the rest of your life. All you, all the pleasure you want, you will never be able to distinguish it from what life was like before. You won't remember that there was a life before. Like, it will be amazing. And something like 74 to 80% of people who are posed this thought experiment say like, nah, I don't want to do that. Even though life is suffering in a lot of ways and sucks and can be boring and is definitely not 100% pleasure all the time, most people still want to be engaged in reality. And that's, again, like, it's not just a cool thought experiment. They use that to argue against

• 25:51Josh Clark?

  the idea that humans are at bottom, just nothing but hedonistic creatures who seek out nothing but to increase their pleasure. Nozick really kind of demolished that with that thought experiment.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, in The Matrix, wasn't Joey Pants, uh, fully on board with the simulation?

• 26:08Josh Clark?

  I don't remember. I don't remember that.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  I think he was, because I think he was like, eating the steak, and they were like, yeah, but the steak's not real. And he's like, yeah, but, you know, it tastes real, tastes good to me, something along those lines. But yeah, it's pretty interesting.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  Do you want to take our second break and come back and talk about our favorite part of this, criticisms?

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's, uh, journey into Act Three.

• 26:45Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road, ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality- And reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Here's a question for all you curious people. What's one thing you wish there was an app for? With Base44, you can build it yourself. It might be something simple like a tool for a task your team does every week. You want the steps, useful links, and everyone's progress in one place.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Well, with Base44, describe that in your own words. You don't need to know coding or programming. Then you just keep editing and refining it until it works exactly the way you want. Your build comes headache-free with built-in login, data storage, backend, and hosting. So what's the app you wish existed?

• 28:20Speaker 02

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• 28:31Josh Clark?

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• 29:48Speaker 02

  All right, so when it comes to criticisms of solipsism, not from us, there are some famous stories, one of which, very famous story in philosophy circles, that is at least, if you're not a philosopher, you probably would be like, what's that guy kicking the rock for? But it was an 18th century story about writer Samuel Johnson, who was in a, I guess, debate with philosopher named George Berkeley. And Berkeley said, hey, Descartes' mind-body dualism is faulty, and everything that appears to have existence is just made up in your mind. Well, first Berkeley said, it's impossible to refute this.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  And that's when cheeky old Samuel Johnson came in and kicked a very large rock and said, I refute this. In other words, hey, this rock is here, and this is just an absurd idea, because I can kick that rock, and it hurt my toe.

• 30:43Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly, yeah. And so if you're a philosopher, you're like, Samuel Johnson doesn't get it. And if you're not a philosopher, you're like, Samuel Johnson gets it. Like, philosophers are very famously, maybe overly engaged in perfectly crafted, totally airtight arguments. And the idea of just kicking a rock and being like, see, it's real, doesn't really hold water with them. But for everybody else, it's like, yeah, it kind of gets to what, Wittgenstein, is that how you would say it in German?

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:18Josh Clark?

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, I'm going to say his name again at least one more time, because it's fun. He was a philosopher of the 20th century. He basically was like, man, philosophy, this is not a quote, I'm paraphrasing, has some, like, real hangups with having to just, like, the fact that solipsism is actually, it exists, and people feel the need to argue against it sometimes, says all you need to know about how uptight philosophers are about philosophy. And essentially, we just need to take some things as fact as granted, or else all we're doing is spinning Our wheels. But if you say like, OK, I believe that the world is material, that it exists apart from human consciousness, that if there were no humans around and nothing, no life to

• 32:03Josh Clark?

  experience it, everything would still be the same. Like, let's just take that as fact. If that's what you believe and just move on from there. You need to have some sort of foundation that you can say, this is real, this exists. And then you build off of that. And if you don't, then you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Essentially, was what Wittgenstein was saying.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think unfortunately Wittgenstein. Well, I was, I didn't see it, but the, I think the second letter in the EI in German is the one that's favored.

• 32:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, so how would you pronounce it then?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  I think it would be Wittgenstein.

• 32:47Josh Clark?

  Well, I still like Wittgenstein, so I'm gonna stay with it.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Like Frankenstein.

• 32:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, I had it backwards. So I thought that Stein was like the Anglicized version of it and Steen was the German version.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  I'm pretty sure the second letter in German is the one that's pronounced.

• 33:06Josh Clark?

  No, I believe you.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  I'm not positive, but I do know that Frankenstein was the doctor.

• 33:13Josh Clark?

  You mean Frankenstein?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  And not the monster.

• 33:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  So let's talk about Stephen P. Thornton. He's a philosopher at the University of Limerick, the most sing-songy university in all of Ireland. He has an argument that, hey, guys, it's a big mistake to view these mental states as just something we experience objectively and then, you know, relate to others like, hey, I know how it feels to get my toe stubbed because I've done it. So I see that's happened to you. So I know how that feels. He says, no, we learn what these mental states are in what he called an intersubjective world. Like, we learn. Like a kid, when it's born, understands what being sad is by looking around at someone crying

• 34:00Speaker 02

  or something like that. And that's how they know what sad is because of a behavior they witness and a context they witness it in. So if you, you know, Livia used a great example. If you're grinding your teeth and if you're, you know, snapping at people in your life and you can't sleep, then you probably know you're experiencing stress.

• 34:19Josh Clark?

  Right. This guy's argument to me is the one that's, that makes the most sense, just refuting solipsism, which is like, yes, you have internal feelings and thoughts, like the experience of feeling sad is not the whole of sadness, that there's other stuff. And all the rest of it essentially comes from interacting and learning from the external world. And so the whole idea of solipsism is based on a faulty premise that the entire world could possibly just be in your head, because how are you going to learn from something that's not actually there in the first place? I like Stephen P. Thornton. He's my new favorite philosopher.

• 35:00Josh Clark?

  There was one other guy, too, we have to, we have to bring into the, the conversation. Bertrand Russell, he's a very famous philosopher and mathematician, I believe. And his whole thing was like, if, if, if we might be like, like, what was it, Zhuangzi? Him saying like, how can I tell if I'm a man dreaming of a wildebeest or a wildebeest dreaming of being a man? And Bertrand Russell was like, if that were true, dreams are just weird and freaky and anything goes. Real, like waking life is not like that. So if waking life were a dream, it, there would be measurable ways that it veers off of like physics or whatever, and we would notice that. And these days it's called a glitch in the matrix. You would notice glitches in the matrix.

• 35:44Josh Clark?

  And there's actually a really cool Reddit subreddit called Glitch in the Matrix. And it's people's like stories about just how, just weird, inexplicable, strange, small things that they've noticed here or there in life. They'll, they'll post them. And every once in a while, there'll be like a picture too. This is kind of fun to go through.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  What would it be of like, give me an example?

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Do you have any?

• 36:08Josh Clark?

  One that I saw a couple of times is something like seeing somebody like go out a door. And then like 30 seconds later, they come in a totally opposite door that they physically couldn't have possibly gotten through. So how do you explain that? Just stuff like that.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:23Josh Clark?

  Like how in the actual movie, The Matrix, things would literally glitch. Like you could kind of tell all of a sudden they were like ones and zeros. This is kind of like that, but it's like the program itself is lazy or something like that.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  I gotcha. So, you know, the navel gazing and talking about solipsism and debating it or whatever is one thing. But if you have a mental illness, especially if you have something like schizophrenia, this idea is terrifying. It's called derealization and it's, you know, it's something that can happen if you suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. There are people that suffer from that that talk about sort of exactly this, like the people around them are extras or empty shells. And that you and you alone are real and responsible for like the world moving on as it is and being alienated from your own body and not having a sense of self.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Like that's all real stuff and terrifying stuff.

• 37:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. There's a psychologist named Clara S. Humston, who kind of explains how somebody with schizophrenia might actually retreat to a solipsistic state as a way to kind of exercise control over a world that they feel like they have zero control over. That like if you're like, nope, all of this is just in my mind and it's not real. Then in a weird sense, even though as lonely and horrifying as that thought actually is, like you can feel like you can control those things then too. And that actually kind of ties into yet another argument or criticism of solipsism. If all of this is just in your mind, all of reality, how do you explain the fact that

• 38:06Josh Clark?

  you have no idea what's coming in the future? Or that you can be surprised or startled? Like none of that makes sense either. So that I don't remember 30 seconds on how those two things tied together, but if I rewind, I'm sure I would find out that they did.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Well, there are other disorders too that touch on other parts of solipsism. Certainly, you're talking about the POS kind, the ethical solipsism. That very closely could tie into something like narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder. That sort of lack of empathy and only making choices based on their own needs, that definitely is like rings of ethical solipsism.

• 38:50Josh Clark?

  Yes. So, yeah, I mean, that's pretty much solipsism. I don't think we're gonna do a part two eventually. I think we've kind of put it to bed, which feels good, Chuck. And since Chuck doesn't have anything else, right?

• 39:09Speaker 02

  I got nothing else.

• 39:10Josh Clark?

  I got nothing else either. So then that means, of course, that it brings up listener mail.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  This is from Jan, spelled J-A-N, but Jan is German. Hey, guys, listened to the episode on Ludwig II, which I enjoyed like all your episodes. I work in research and development for wastewater technology. So I know how much work it is to research a new topic and become familiar enough to talk about it like you guys do. And I mostly research stuff in my own field, so well done. I want to say thank you for being a steady presence throughout my PhD on waterless toilets, fatherhood, the pandemic, and my new job, which often takes me on long road trips. Love learning, and your podcast allows me to broaden my horizon way beyond my normal work. Today, however, guys, I have to write to assure you

• 39:57Speaker 02

  that filling a hall of 500 people in Germany would be ein Kinderspiel. Child's play.

• 40:05Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  He says, most people below the age of 40 here speak English to a decent degree, and I know plenty of people that listen to your show. So please, please, come to Germany. If you do, I'll make it my mission to get the event sold out. And let me know if you want any recommendations for decent beers while you're here. And that is from Jan.

• 40:25Josh Clark?

  Man, that's awesome. That was a great email, Jan. Yeah, I think we should take Jan up on that finally, Chuck. I want to go to Germany.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  We've had enough people saying, come to Germany. I think we have to go to like Berlin and Munich just to see what the heck is going on.

• 40:38Josh Clark?

  Two, huh?

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could do the big city style and then Bavarian city style.

• 40:44Josh Clark?

  Okay, let's do it then. It is settled. And that was from Jan, J A N?

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:51Josh Clark?

  I'm glad you said that because for my whole life, I've been saying, well, first I said Jan. Then I grew up and I thought Jan. I did not know it was Yoon.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Well, this is what, I mean, J A N in this letter said it's pronounced Y U N N.

• 41:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's Yoon, for sure.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  That's Yoon. All right.

• 41:11Josh Clark?

  But anybody's name pronounced Jan reminds me of a quote, have you ever seen Johnny Suede? The Brad Pitt movie?

• 41:19Speaker 02

  I never saw that.

• 41:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but there was a classic line in it where he's at dinner at like his date's house and the date's dad says, um, you know, John, if we were in Sweden, your name would be Jan Suede. And he says, no, sir, it'd be John. Johnny Suede, always has been, always will be.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  That's pretty good, Brad Pitt.

• 41:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you have to imagine Brad Pitt, blankly saying this, but with a huge pompadour. It's pretty great.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Not bad.

• 41:52Josh Clark?

  Well, I think that's it. Again, thanks, Yoon, and we'll see everybody, including Yoon, in Germany eventually. We'll figure it out. And in the meantime, if anybody out there from Germany or otherwise wants to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 42:27Josh Clark?

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• 43:12Josh Clark?

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• 43:57Speaker 03

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